3 Things You Really Need To Know About Local Anesthetic Before Your Implant Restoration

Implant restorations at places like Tijeras Dental Service are typically carried out under local anesthetic, which is an injection that the dentist administers into your gum in order to numb the area being treated. Unfortunately, many people are concerned about receiving local anesthetic. To help you get over this fear, below are three things you really need to understand:

You Won't Suffocate or Choke

One of the most common fears people have about being given local anesthetic is that the anesthetic may cause them to suffocate or choke. The reason why many people feel this way is due to the numbing sensation that is experienced when under local anesthetic. This numbing sensation may indeed cause you to stop being conscious to the feeling or breathing or swallowing. However, this does not mean that your body has stopped breathing or that you are unable to swallow. Rather, this experience is simply because local anesthetic shuts off some of the signals being sent from your brain in order to ensure that you do not feel any pain or discomfort during the dental procedure.

Whilst any form of anesthetic administered at high levels may indeed harm your body's ability to function at a basic level, the level of anesthetic administered by your dental practitioner is extremely low. Additionally, the anesthetic is only injected locally into the gum surrounding the implant that is to be restored. As such, it is only a very small area of your mouth that will be numb during the procedure – the rest of your mouth will feel as normal as ever!

You Won't Lose Control of Your Body

Many people are worried that local anesthetic will cause them to lose control of their body. Similar to a fear of suffocating, a significant number of dental patients feel that local anesthetic will cause them to lose complete control over their mouth and may result in accidents occurring. This is a very rational fear, and the majority of people feel that losing control of their body could cause them harm, such as by allowing them to eat very hot food that will burn their mouth without them realizing it.

For others, this fear of losing control is due to a sense of embarrassment. Specifically, people believe that losing control of their mouth will cause them to drool unsightly in public, and they may be worried about being teased or mocked by their peers. However, whilst this may indeed be embarrassing at first, the vast majority of people fully understand that this is a recurrent by-product of dental care and will have gone through the exact same thing themselves. If you are finding it particularly challenging to come to terms with this, you should look to schedule your implant restoration for the weekend or a day that you are off work. This way you will be able to return home and stay within the confines of your own home until the drooling stops. Typically this only takes a couple of hours, so you will be back out in public in no time!

The Numbing Sensation is Not a Threat

The numbing sensation experienced when under local anesthetic isn't a sensation that most people experience on a regular basis. Typically, people associate numbness with a threat to their body and can become anxious when any part of their body loses its feeling. If you are particularly afraid of this sensation, you may experience panic attacks because of the negative associations your brain makes with this sensation.

Logically, you probably fully understand what local anesthetic is and know that it will go away soon. This isn't the problem; rather, it is your subconscious that is making you feel this way. Panic is a very primitive reaction to a dangerous situation and it can be challenging to eliminate quickly. However, you can significantly reduce the anxiety you feel by practicing meditation techniques and becoming familiar with staying calm in stressful situations. The real key to overcoming this problem is education – learning as much as you can about how local anesthetic works and why it is required will help your subconscious become calm when in the dental chair.